I made pumpkin chipotle soup for dinner and it was goddamn delicious. I started with this recipe and made some sliiiiiight modifications. (I also doubled the recipe because soup is fantastic when leftover.)

I added an extra clove of garlic, plus some extra chipotle. I also added an extra half cup of heavy cream to temper the extra chipotle. Instead of red wine vinegar, I went with apple cider vinegar. I also threw in some paprika.

Decided to try out a recipe I found online last week, so I got a bunch of kielbasa chopped in 1-ince pieces, a whole chopped onion, a BUNCH of drained and rinsed sauerkraut and put it all in a crock pot. Oh, also poured a can of Pilsner Urquell in. Set it on high and left it for about six hours. Then got a bun, toasted it and scooped a healthy serving of my concoction on to the bun and added a nice dollop of extra hot mustard.

I'll post pics when it's done, but I'm gonna be making Puerco Pibil for a friend's birthday party on Friday. It's the infamous slow-roasted spicy pork dish from Once Upon A Time in Mexico that Robert Rodriguez did a Ten Minute Cooking School for on the DVD (or you can find it on youtube if you don't have the DVD). I've made it a few times before but haven't made it in a whiiiiiile so I'm pretty excited cuz if you do it right it comes out really fucking good. I usually substitute jalapeno peppers in for the habaneros and just use a couple more than recommended because a) I'm a fucking wuss, and b) cuz jalapenos are much easier to find where I live.

I made a classic American-style chicken noodle soup over the weekend from scratch, that my rather picky wife finally liked. I've been making chicken soup for years, but always in a pretty sloppy ("rustic") manner, and she always said she liked smelling it cook better than eating it. So, things that I finally took seriously:

- I started from half a leftover roast chicken- Very carefully removed the meat and really diced it, careful to not get any grisly bits in like the thigh end bits- Caramelized the bones with stock vegetables (onion, carrot, potato, apple, celery) before making the stock- Ensured there was enough salt in the stock- Strained the stock to clarify it- Carefully added a small amount of soy sauce, sesame oil, apple cider and fish oil to give it a slightly pho-like funk - Diced carrot, celery, onion, and zucchini evenly in 1/2" bits, rather than using rustic stew-sized chunks- Used shell pasta for noodles, added at the last minute so they were still firm

The results won me praise and affection. It never hurts to take the time to pay attention to the basics.

Figures it'd take this thread to get me to wander back into Whitechapel for a little while.

Yesterday the fella and I ended up at this pretty amazing local butcher, and after being completely overwhelmed by options (Regular Bacon! English Bacon! Canadian Bacon! Jowl Bacon! Flavored Jowl Bacon! And we didn't even get into any of the regular meat options.), we went home w/ a half-pound of that regular bacon (it has a name, I know it does, but it escapes me) and a half-gallon of fancy local milk for the fella. I kinda over-cooked the bacon, sadly, and it was a little too salty. BUT. It was still really good bacon, and we're definitely wanting to check out their brats and hot dogs (they make their own sausages! And they're humongous!) when the weather is more suitable for grilling-out.

I'm still pretty terrible about cooking on a regular schedule, but I did make some awesome sliders the other day. Followed Alton Brown's technique, but I put a touch of cinnamon in there as well. Woah. I know I've used cinnamon w/ ground beef before, though I can't remember how or where I got the idea. But it's gooooooood. It shouldn't work, but it does.

I've been meaning to make some no-knead bread, and actually got the dough made and had it rise overnight, but I accidentally slept in and had no time to bake the thing as I had to rush my ass off to get to work. I think that's what knocked me out of my plans to cook all week. I was wanting to make a bacon and egg soup w/ that bread, too... >:|

@spike- OH MAN. I remember watching that 10 Min Cooking School many times. Never got around to making Puerco Pebil, though. I should do this.

I totally forgot to take pics of the Pibil when it was done b/c the start time of the party got moved up and nobody told us till the last minute, but holy shit it came out awesome. There was a dude there who's from the area the dish originated in (the Yucatan peninsula) and even he really liked it, so I'm pretty fuckin proud. Gringo makes passable Mexican food! That shit got decimated quick. Luckily I kept a tiny bit for me and the wife to have later because, believe it or not, it's even better as leftovers. I think it's because the sauce has a chance to really soak into the meat, but I could be wrong. We meant to let it marinate overnight but forgot to the get ingredients till day of so I think I'll try that next time.

Brit - I took notes on the 10 min. cooking school and wrote the whole recipe down so if you're ever jonesing to make it, let me know and I'll save you a bit of trouble and send it to you so you don't have to either do it yourself or put the DVD on and pause every few seconds to get an ingredient ready.

I've got a free-range chicken in the fridge, I'm gonna be roasting that sucker for a good couple of hours tomorrow with a ludicrous amount of butter under the skin, olive oil, lemon juice and a dab of salt on top, lemon and onion with some rosemary and bay inside, big handful of carrots in the pan and lid off for the last half an hour to crisp up the skin. BAM!

who's got a good recipe for extra chicken? There's only two of us and one toddler, I think we can spin it out till tuesday :D

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